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Show PAGE 28 THE ZEPHYRJUNE 89 Goodbye Mr. Spalding a return to baseball, spring and all things green by Jim Stiles love baseball. When I was a kid, baseball was my Hfe. My friends and I would play ball all morning, when the dew was still heavy on the bluegrass. When we came home at lunch for a quick peanut butter sandwich, our P. F. Flyers and Red Ball Jets would still be soaked and stained grass-gree- n. balL The There was no nearby diamond, so we played a combined street-ya- rd home-plat- e. In oil Glen Water meter stain middle Road marked the of Meade big covers designated first and third. We chalked In second base. Any ball hit on the fly past Wayne Yarbrough's house was "outa here" - a home run. My dad gave me my first glove when I was seven years old. He was manager of the sporting goods department at Sears back then, and could always get good deals on equipment That first glove was a beauty - a leather work of art I sat on the kitchen floor rubbing coat after coat of neatsfoot oil Into the mitt until the leather was soft as butter. My mother wrote my name and address along the outside edge of the glove, but to my subsequent embarrassment and humiliation, she Inscribed: "Jimbo Stiles" into the leather with a permanent black Ink pen. To this day, some thirty years later, my mother still calls me Jimbo. I loved that glove. But there was one problem; It was an adults glove and I was seven years old. A small seven-ye- ar old at that, thanks to my five I foot mother's little genes. As a result, looked something like this: managed to overcome the problem by putting all four fingers Into the last leather glove finger and stretching my thumb as for as It would reach. It was a precarious grip I had on this glove. Still It worked out pretty well most of the time. Every now and then, however, a well hit ball would slam .Into the webbing, and my official Ted Williams mitt with the ball secure within, would leave my hand and continue on Its way to the outfield. Michael Pottlnger and I once had a terrific fight when I argued that since the ball had stayed in the glove, he was out; the problem was the glove ended up about thirty feet from where I "caught the ball. I think I lost that argument Back then, before George Steinbrenner came a long, I loved the Yankees. It takes courage to admit that even now, to an avid Boston Red Sox tan (sorry Ken, sorry Salamancha, et aL) But I did love that team and everything about them. I loved their baggie pinstripe uniforms, . their nickname (The Bronx Bombers), and I loved Yankee Stadium, the old Yankee Stadium, before they modernized It and ruined K. There was something mystical about the place. . It was foil of ghosts - Ruth, Gehrig, Dlmaglo. I knew all there was to know about that cavernous ball park. It was a short 296 ft. down the right field Hne, 301 to left. But centerfleld, way out there where the monuments to the Yankees' finest were, was almost 500 feet Who knows how many more homeruns Mickey Mantle might have hit, had they pulled In the centerfleld fence by forty or fifty feet? The Yankee team that faced Pittsburgh In the 1960 World Series Is the one I remember best I can SUN recite the starting lineup, and I still remember . I the seventh game. surreptitiously listened to that game In Mrs O'Brien's class at Goldsmith Elementary. I had a transistor radio In my shorts, with an attached earpiece that I ran up the sleeve of my shirt My friends and I tried to convince Mrs. OBrien that watching the game would be an "educational experience, but she was not Impressed. We had a TV In the classroom (for Spanish); the TV was sitting right there. All she had to do was turn that little knob. But It only stared blankly at us. In the bottom of the seventh, the Yankees took a 7-- 4 lead. Six outs to go. I could scarcely contain myself as I sat there squirming In my seat Unfortunately, I squirmed too much and bumped the tuning dial on the radio. All I was getting was static, but t couldnt the tuning because . . .well, the damn radio as I said was In my shorts. I couldn't Just reach In my pants and fix the dial right there In Mrs. OBriens geography clan. So I sweated It out until the bell rang. I raced to the school bus, found a seat and retrieved the radio from my underwear. But now, In the bus there : was some sort of electrical Interference and I couldnt pick up a thing. Still, I was confident I leaped from the bus and started running towards my house, trumpeting the Yankees inevitable triumph all the way. But my mother heard me coming as I raced down the sidewalk, and met me with the bad news: the Yankees were down 9--7 In the top of the ninth. They were down to their last out And then, because Mickey Mantle made one of the most bizarre, tactical moves Ive ever seen, a play too complicated to describe here, the : boys in pinstripe were still In the game 9-- 9, and we went to the bottom of the ninth. The first batter for the Pirates was their second ? baseman, BUI Mazeroskl. He was a lackluster hitter, and was hardly a threat On the mound for New York, Ralph Terry. Ralph always worried me with his lack of In so bottom and of the ninth Inning, In the seventh and the consistency, ' final game of the 1960 World Series, I was worried. I I re-adj- : SUN COUNTRY REALTY Moab, Utah.84532 True Family Restaurant OPEN 6 a.m. - 10 p.m. You havent been ust tour moneys worth and a whole lot more. 234 N. 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